tonight i attended an engineering dinner meeting with Rie for her work. it was a semi annual meeting for what i believe was a local chapter ASCE meeting. ASCE is the americN society of civil engineers. similar to the venue i patron for ASHRAE.

it was interesting to see another society in engineering and to learn about the state of their art. i humorously introduced myself as a ‘mechanical engineer’ with the poke that i had no reason for being there. people chuckled and i even got a ‘what are you doing HERE!?’ jab from someone at the table…that elicited another wave of chuckles.

the dinner program was on a presentation of one of the large ongoing port of LA projects. i got to see a project entirely non-related to my field of mechanical engineering. it was enlightening to see such an enormous project with so many aspects to plan around. oceanic hurdles such as the ocean grass that needs to be considered prior to dredging. removal of contaminated soil and how/where to dispose it. and many other items i can only imagine took place.

i am amazed at the enormity and complexity of such projects. and in this time of age when economics is a major factor, projects such as these are even more under the watchful eyes!